New Jersey Pine Barrens

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Pine Barrens

1. Jersey Devil
2. National Reserve









The Pinelands is our country's first National Reserve and a U.S. Biosphere Reserve of the Man and the Biosphere Program. It is over 1 million acres in size and underneath it lies the Cohansey-Kirkwood aquifer containing approximately 17 trillion gallons of water. Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester andOcean counties all house portions of the Pinelands National Reserve. The region is 2/3 privately and 1/3 publicly owned. Some of the state forests, parks and WMAs include Wharton, Brendan Byrne, Bass River, Greenwood WMA, Belleplain, Peaslee, MacNamara and Colliers Mills. Parvin State Park in Salem County is considered Pinelands-fringe. In addition, organizations such as The Nature Conservancy and New Jersey Natural Lands Trusts and New Jersey Conservation Foundation own properties that are open to the public for passive recreation. - andrew http://www.njpinelandsanddownjersey.com/open/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=20

3. Batsto – Bog Iron

Beautiful Batsto Village, located in Wharton State Forest, is the site of a former bog iron and glass-making community. Founded in 1766 by famous Ironmaster Charles Reed, the Batsto Iron Works was constructed on the banks of the Batsto River. The name derives from the Swedish "Batstu," which means bathing place, and the bathers were probably the Lenni-Lenape Indians.The Iron Works soon changed hands, bought by John Cox in 1773 and Joseph Ball in 1779. Throughout this period it was instrumental in supplying the Continental Army with a variety of war products, from munitions to kettles, and parts for ships.William Richards bought the Works in 1784 and it remained in his family, operated by his son and grandson, for the next 92 years. They were responsible for building most of the village.As happened with the pig iron industry everywhere, Batsto declined in the mid-1800's. After a brief period of manufacturing glass, it fell into receivership.The complex was purchased by Joseph Wharton in 1876. Wharton built a sawmill, cleared the land, planted cranberries and other crops, and ran a forest products and agriculture business until he died in 1909. In 1954 Batsto was purchased by the State of New Jersey, and today it is the core of Wharton State Forest, which in turn is part of the Pinelands National Reserve.
http://www.fieldtrip.com/nj/95610024.htm

4. Pitch Pine / Fire Ecology
This is the type of ecology that studies wildland fires and its effect on the surrounding environment. This type of fire is a fire that burns a natural environment. These fires are not man-made, but are naturally occuring. The study of fire ecology focuses on how plants react and adapt to the fire. One positive thing from fires is that it gets rid of any fuel build-up if there are frequent fires that go through. If there were one fire every once in awhile there would be a lot more fuel built-up and the fire would get huge and out of hand. Pitch pines are trees that grow in dry areas and they are known primarily for their ability to withstand fires. The pitch pine had adapted to fire and is able to sprout back up after a fire has destroyed the crown of the tree. The new sprouting of the pitch pine is commonly twisted and tangled because it gets warped from the fire.
http://www.pacificbio.org/Projects/Fire2001/fire_ecology.htm
http://www.oplin.org/tree/fact%20pages/pine_pitch/pine_pitch.html

5. Kirkwood-Cohansey Aquifer
6. Piney’s
Piney is a derogatory term that refers to native inhabitants of the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
"The Pineys are a much researched and documented group who are descended from Leni Lenapes, early Elizabethan era settlers, escaped slaves, Irish refugees who escaped the NY slums and many others. Their language, commonly filled with malapropisms and containing many archaic traces of Elizabethan English, was recorded along with their distinctive music at the turn of the 20th century by Edison and anthropologists from the Smithsonian." - (Weird NJ)
http://www.weirdnj.com/story_archives/02-02.html
Pitman is in the Pines, a swam area that lies between the Jersey Shore to the east and the industrial flatlands to the west. It is regarded as a backwater by the rest of the state. Its residents, called Pineys, are known for such rustic practices as inbreeding, guaranteed to produce such genetic sports as epilepsy. Patti told a friend that the incidence of epilepsy was so high that all the kids carried popsicle sticks in their pockets to use as tongue depressors in case of a class mate's sudden grand or petit mal seizure. Patti's family weren't Pineys -- they were originally from Chicago and Philadelphia. But coupled with her fevered coal stove visions and the UFO magazines, not to mention the Bible, it must have been a hell of a place to live." - http://www.oceanstar.com/patti/intervus/760101rs.htm
"They don't buy, they don't sell, they don't start fashion, they don't follow fashion. Just poach, fornicate, and produce oh-point-four hydrocephalic albinos per hundred. Or something." Gregory Feeley (http://www.avramdavidson.org/nutmeg17.htm)

7. Endangered Species

The Pine Barrens is home to an estimated eight-hundred and fifty species of plants and three hundred and fifty species of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.

There are approximately fifty-five plant species considered endangered in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Reasons for the dwindling numbers include introduction of aggressive, non-native plants, the preventing and extinguishing of fires (normally a natural occurrence of the Pine Barrens), and changing the natural water flow, or hydrology, because of farming and building.
There are presently twenty-eight species of vertebrate, including birds, reptiles, and amphibians, considered threatened or endangered. - andrew http://www.thewildones.org/PineBarrens/PineBarrens.html

8. The New Jersey Home for the Education and Care of Feebleminded Children” Vineland Training School
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland_Training_School
9. Cranberry History and Production
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ9w0Mg6b0Y
http://www.pineypower.com/cranberries.htm
-Cranberry cultivation in New Jersey is believed to have begun In 1840
-New Jersey is currently the third largest cranberry producing area in the United states following Massachusetts and Wisconsin
-The majority of cranberries are harvested between September and October

10. Tea-colored Water

The water in the Pines is commonly called "cedar water." The Cohansey-Kirkwood aquifer is shallow in most areas, often less than 20 feet below the surface. (Patrick) The acidic waters (4.4 mean pH) are tea colored as a result of humates and a lack of organisms to decompose them, as well as by tannic acid present in plants, especially Atlantic White Cedar, and also by naturally forming iron present in the streams. http://www.njpinelandsanddownjersey.com/open/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=20 andrew :)